It’s true that the year 2018 was one of the worst years for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies thus far. However, there are still many influential people and corporations backing Bitcoin and the industry as a whole. One of them happens to be one of the richest people in the world. The Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing, recently reaffirmed his support for Bitcoin by investing in the technology.

Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong Billionaire, Invests In BTC Li Ka-shing is a 90 year old billionaire who is commonly known as Superman. Through his venture capital firm, Horizon Ventures, Li recently invested in Bakkt. According to the announcement from Bakkt, Horizon Ventures led an investment round that summed up to be $182.5 million. This fund is going to go a long way to influence the development of Bakkt.

Even if many investors left the industry during the decline, there are still a lot of diehard Bitcoin investors who believe in the future of BTC. While some have come back, some others never left. The positive start this year has cheered them up as they look forward to the highly anticipated launch of Bakkt.

Bakkt is a Bitcoin platform that is being developed by Intercontinental Exchange in collaboration with Startbucks, and Microsoft. The platform is going to offer Bitcoin futures trading as well as open the Bitcoin trading market to more investors. The platform is set to be launched in the first quarter of the year. Later in the year, traders will be allowed to sell, buy and spend cryptocurrencies through the platform via Microsoft’s cloud network. With Starbucks, the users will be able to convert Bitcoin to any cryptocurrency of their choice or to the USD which can be used to make purchases.

Keep in mind that this isn’t the first investment Li is making in the cryptocurrency industry. The billionaire, who is worth over $34.9 billion, invested in blockchain technology in 2013. Part of the investment was for BitPay, the popular payment processor while the other was for Blockstream in 2016 via Horizon Ventures. Last year, Li was joined by Sir Richard Branson, another billionaire investor and the founder of the Virgin brand. Branson invested $30 million in BitPay.

What The Future Holds For Bitcoin

Ever since Bitcoin hit its all-time-high of almost $20,000 during the bull run in December 2017 and January 2018, the price quickly fell significantly against the USD. Towards the end of the year, it fell as low as $3150 due to the increased bear pressure in the market. While there has been some improvement in market, the first cryptocurrency per market capitalization is nowhere close to its all-time-high.

With things like the US Bitcoin ETF on the horizon, the price of Bitcoin may enjoy a boost soon. While the Bitcoin ETF is likely to boost the price of BTC, there is no guarantee that the SEC will give its approval at anytime soon. The United States SEC has been hesitant to approve the Bitcoin ETF because of things like price manipulation and volatility. Recently, the Winklevoss twins took to Reddit to discuss the possibility of the United States regulators approving the Bitcoin ETF later in the year. For now, all we can do is wait and see.